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Chapter 2

Darkness had seeped into the land hours ago. A cold, silent chill lingered in the night, the creeping mist of the mountains swathing the bare trees in a thick, impenetrable fog. Sheets of snow lathered the sickly mud in their own white pallor, gripping resolutely onto the mountainsides and groves. Trails of hungry beasts were days old, and none were fresh. The mountainside lost its rivers and forests to be left with a barren, ever-climbing slope of ice. There was no wind. There were no ill creatures found lurking in the shadows; they made no noise, no fires, and no hunting parties. All was as still as death.

In the mass of an unbroken chill, silence reigned.

How Ulfric missed the wind. Although foul, its rank stench and eerie howling concealed what wanted to be forgotten. How the silence ground at him, baring its fangs into his soul.

You are lost, it whispered. You are forgotten. Forgotten and alone.

Ulfric's faltering footsteps were thunderclaps in the hush of night. His threadbare blanket was wrapped tightly over his huddled form, hiding his thin wan figure from the world. Much of the cold air stole away what little warmth the cloth could preserve. His dagger and whetstone could perhaps be found somewhere within the grasp of his fingers, but they were so numb Ulfric could not be certain they even functioned. The breath that slithered from his chapped and bleeding lips came as clouds of mist, swathing over his face in a brief, blissful warmth before fading away.

He had abandoned his flight hours ago. He swayed with each footstep. The weakness that came with days of no food or drink grew too strong; his legs would give away and he would tumble to the ground, snow spraying about him. At times, he would simply remain there, cheek pressed against the painful cold, and simply wait for sleep to take him. His head buzzed, and the more often he looked past him, he understood less of where he was or what he was doing. Sometimes his eyes would droop, and the chill would pleasantly leave him. The dark land would grow even darker, and for a moment, he would feel comfort.

Then he would hear a thrum, so distant yet too close, echoing in the night. Be it his imagination or reality, Ulfric did not know. But he would already lurch to his feet before his eyes snapped open, and he would be on the move again, heart thundering in his throat.

Much of the fear, the urge to run, had belayed pain of his wounds. But, the lapse was cruelly short-lived.

Soon, the wounds introduced themselves once more to Ulfric, his ankle searing in agony. A warm wetness continued to trickle down to his heel and onto the snow, leaving a long trail of crimson in his wake. Each step brought a sharp spasm of pain jolting through his leg, sewing a renewed state of misery into his form. The wintry weather only coaxed the pain into a sharper sting that sapped the strength dry from his limbs. It smelled worse now. A stronger fetid stench that rose into his nostrils and ran them raw. Ulfric imagined walking may become impossible by morning.

He had not mended it on the trail; he would not mend it now. Not with the beating of wings still heard behind him. Not when still he had time to distance himself. Sovngarde take him before he be found by those scaled beasts again.

But as darkness drew on, and the fickle paleness of the moon leaked through the clouds, the Nord found himself more on his knees than on his feet. The sky became the ground, the ground the sky, and soon he was not certain which he stood upon. He struggled to blink the exhaustion away, ice crusting around his eyelids.

When he opened his eyes again, the moon and stars was gone, and the sun peaked out from beneath the mountains.

He heaved in a gasp.

Everything was numb. Snow interlaced itself in his hair, melting and then freezing into a solid nest of hair and ice. His face, frozen by the snow pressed against his skin, ached, but he feared if he moved it, it would shatter to pieces. The thin cloth of a blanket tossed over him was stiff-stiffer than the bark of a tree, solidified in its folds and how it draped-and enveloped with more snow. Whatever was not covered by his blanket was coated in a thick sheet of frost, so cold it burned like fire against his skin. His tongue felt like sand in his mouth, dry and cracking, and he tasted iron. Even his stomach - especially his stomach - pulsed with the agony of hunger.

A pained groan escaped him when he moved his arms. Like weighted metal they traveled, responding but a little to his commands, the fingers shifting with the speed of a dead ox. Ulfric maneuvered them beneath him to push himself upright, the weakness of slumber and of starvation clutching to his muscles. Struggling to his feet (how his ankle cried in protest), he gathered his supplies with near-lifeless digits and prepared to stumble on his way. He stopped when he realized he did not know where he was.

The fog had cleared. The trees in which had dappled the Eastmarch were gone, the land utterly devoid of their darkened skeletal shapes. The leagues of barren soils of ash were replaced instead with a thick sheet of ice and snow that stretched to the very sky. Lining the landscape stood mountains, tall and strong, the morning sun kissing their faces and throwing darkened shadows across the pallid snow. Ulfric spun around to look behind him, and noticed something on the ground.

Blood. Trickles of it dotting his every footstep, a beckon any being within miles to catch the scent and the trail, leading ultimately to the wounded human himself. Ulfric scowled and glanced at his ailed leg. It continued to bleed. It was a minor alleviation to find it not bleeding so profusely, but the relief was smothered out by the ugly pink flesh surrounding the gouge, and a foul-smelling liquid oozing from it. He grimaced and, fingers fumbling, struggled with his blanket to tear off strands. He wrapped what few slivers he could afford around the wound, not bothering to clean it. Every shift of his muscle tore him with agony, and he bit down every hiss he could hold.

Not unusually, there were no birds to sing their tunes in the air, but there also stood no other creature in sight, hungry and scouring for man flesh. There was no doubt that he had attracted unwanted attention. He left too much behind, made far too much noise, and traversed so slow that his scent lingered. Falmer and spiders should be upon him, which gnashing teeth and blood-shot eyes, overpowering him and dragging him to their dismal caves. The grip around Ulfric's dagger tightened.

When he glanced to the sky, he found it lacking of its shadowy master. He heard no thrum or cry from above, nor any noise to alert him of another presence. The revelation did not comfort him. He folded his whetstone into his blanket and offered one final gander toward the distant mountains behind him.

The rocks moved.

It was less of a move than a shift, but they did so all the same. He could only see the shadows of the sun dancing over them, but one shifted faster and more sporadic than the rest. Swaying like a tree in the wind, it acted very much as a rock should not.

Ulfric stopped breathing when he watched it straighten and fold its grey wings over its flanks.

He collapsed to his belly, flattening himself against the snow-ridden ground, when he saw its head stretch into the expanse of the mountains. He cursed silently in a thousand Nordic oaths, form pressed into the ice in an effort to merge with it and remain unseen. The wind caressed his back with a mocking tenderness, whisking through his hair and scurrying the crimson snow into his eyes. His gaze bore into it, fully realizing its position. With his heart thundering in his throat, his eyes followed the trail of blood and felt his stomach cave when it edged closer towards the dragon.

It had followed him. His scent had led it closer, its stench lingering but perhaps not strong enough for the beast to immediately find him. The beast shifted further down the mountain, a mere silhouette against the stones with its grey scales melting into the rock, closer toward his trail. He could almost feel the deep hiss murmuring in its throat.

Ulfric slid up to his knees, eyes still fixated on the beast, as he eased himself to a low crouch and shuffled backwards. He bit his lip as he felt the shock of pain lurch up through his leg, wincing at the crunch of snow beneath his weight. Every breath of sound screamed into the air. He moved farther away.

Motion told him the dragon raised its head once more, and with each straining second Ulfric inched farther away. The ground began to dip beneath his feet and he narrowly lost his footing, clenching his teeth to bar away his hiss as the snow slid around him. The view of the mountains were lost beneath the top of the knoll, and it was then that he noticed his heavy footprints seeded deeply into the ice. Hastily, he unslung his blanket over his shoulder and smothered it over the impressions, gliding the snow back into place. The hill dipped beneath his feet as he stumbled along, crouched low to the ground with soft breath flittering from his lips. Foot by foot, Ulfric moved lower down, ears nearly aching for the sound of a dragon's hiss.

Feet became yards. Yards became miles. The wind constantly pelted at his face, and he soon recalled why he ever so much despised it. The foul stench swathed his nostrils again, the sharp peal of its voice echoing through the bluff. The thundering of wings came again, signaling the beast's flight once more. Glancing upward, Ulfric found the speck of black against the grey sky, its shape far too defined to comfort him. He slid further down, flattening himself against whatever stone or cliff he could find in sight. Talos, his heart shuddered so violently he nearly forgot his wounded leg, and instead pressed his hands against his chest and mouth to keep himself still and silent.

The dragon did not leave. Worse, it did not find him. Ulfric spared few risks in his years of life, but here he could do nothing that did not lead to his death. He ducked between fallen rocks or broken ruins, but the landscape grew more barren and more icy throughout the minutes, and soon that was all there was to see.

Noon became dusk. Shadows stretched further and grew darker, but still the dragon remained. It knew he was here; it would have fled back to its holdings otherwise.

But it could not find him.

A shadow fell upon him, and Ulfric flinched as he felt the beast pass by. Limbs tightening in terror and pain, he staggered away, darting across the shadows with his ice-ridden blanket held above to conceal his form. The snow grew thicker against the soles of his feet, swallowing them to his knees. He shuffled deeper, farther, as the ground dipped lower and the air bit as his cheeks with a painful chill. How the wind howled into his ears, deafening him. How he loathed it.

Soon, dusk left all together, and darkness engulfed the land.

He saw nothing. No aid came from the stars or moon, the sky swallowed up by the clouds, and so he relied on his half-numb fingers to guide him. The hill seemed never-ending, the wind ever-remaining.

Then, suddenly the soft ground became moist and slippery, and he tasted salt on his tongue.

There was only one sea in Skyrim. It struck Ulfric suddenly, like the cold waves rushing to meet him. He had gone further north than he had realized, where the air was not so foul and the ash was lost in the breeze of the sea.

But then the agony of the days came back, the sharp pain of hunger clawing at his stomach, the fierce fire of his leg and shoulder, and the dire numbness that gnawed on his bones. The world tipped under his feet. He threw his arms out to support himself and they struck a wall of ice. He ran his hands along the surface, feeling the cold bite of its chill against his skin. It burned like fire when he leaned against it, following its frosty structure to maintain his sense of balance.

The waves drowned out all sounds-even the beat of the dragon's wings. He did not know where it went but he know that it was close.

He walked on. Occasionally, the wall of ice would dip and disappear under his hand, leaving him stumbling in an incoherent pathway. He felt icy water slosh at his feet, soaking his trousers to his knees, before the ground became hard once more, like smooth rock that was oddly difficult to balance on, its surface swaying to and fro. A faint crackling shuttered at his feet, vibrating along his soles, the murmuring of water so close to his ears. With another step his legs sunk back into familiarly moist soil, and then the soft flakes of snow. Instead of dipping downhill, the terrain began to slope upwards, first gradually and then steeply. His legs quivered beneath his weight, and again he waved about his arms in search of support.

He found it, a sharp, jagged surface, uneven and rough against the palm of his hand. He moved and followed it, palm tearing and cutting against its rocks. Then, the steepness lessened, the ground grew flat, and suddenly the wall curved inward. His feet, weak and numb, tripped over themselves. He stumbled and threw his hands out, fingers brushing only against air. The wind whispered past his cheeks, and he tumbled to the ground in a heap.

Silence encased him, save for a faint whisper, sounding of wind passing through hollow walls. The air did not seize the warmth from his bones, and the painful cry of his ankle lessened. His limbs fell lax on their own accord, and Ulfric felt himself floating. His eyelids fluttered shut, and he eased his head back into a pillow of ice.

The Nord frowned. The snow was thin here, unnaturally so. Peeling his eyes open and easing himself into a sitting position, he glanced forward and found the white snow gleaming before him, the clouds waning just enough to allow the moon to offer light. A shadow hung over him, and it was then he realized that the wind did not touch him. He swiveled his head over his shoulder.

A gaping blackness stared back at him. He blinked, trying to belay whatever blindness had taken him, and squinted at the darkness. Walls stood around him, encasing him and shielding him from the chill, rocky surfaces etched out perhaps by a river centuries ago. A silent breath escaped him.

He found a cave.


He used his hands to see, gliding them over the stone as he surged forward. The air was thick in the cave, but smelled more of musk than of putrid rot. He stumbled frequently on the uneven ground beneath him, its belly covered in stones, moss, and at times a suspiciously sticky substance. The ceiling was barely high enough to touch the filthy mess of hair atop Ulfric's head and at times bashed into his forehead. A throbbing headache was added to his list of troubles.

The wind continued to moan outside.

Every several minutes, the ground would dip steeply down or climb up, higher into whatever mountain it had carved itself into. Ulfric brandished his knife in front of him, squinting warily in the darkness. Beasts lived in every crevasse of the earth to be free of the dragons, and the chances were high that this cave too held unwelcome creatures. Not that he could fend them off. Not now. The world was tilting around him without a single movement of his own, and the repugnant scent of blood had grown stronger and marred the faintly salty air. Talos, how his ankle throbbed.

Ever still, he walked.

Soon, the sounds of the outside world grew dim and then silent, and he was welcomed only with the hollow echoes of his own faltering footsteps and breath. His palms cut themselves deeper into the harsh stone, the Nord grinding his teeth together at the scabs that were repeatedly torn off, until his fingers met something smooth.

Smooth and light, it groaned at his touch. He pulled his hand away instinctively and brandished his dagger, expecting the foreign object to hold ill will towards him. It did not move, in the pitch darkness. Stilling his thundering heart with a knotted jaw, he reached out once more, and felt at the surface. It was round, no larger than his own fist, and his fingers could wrap comfortably around it. It moaned deeply at any slight touch, and Ulfric offered his other hand to explore it. It ran upward, long and thick, and bars connected the two large poles together. He shook it lightly. It murmured at the movement, but remained firm. His fingers stilled at the cold iron that held the bars together before the realization struck him.

It was a ladder. Wooden, the rungs were cracked at places, thick layers of moss wrapping around its surface in a tight vice. When he eased himself onto it, it groaned under his weight once more, but still remained firm.

He took three steps up it before his head banged against the ceiling, the hollow rattle of wood and metal bouncing along the walls. A deep growl of irritation bubbled at his throat, and he massaged the dull pain from his head. His hand paused when the knuckles brushed against the roof, feeling oddly circular. Again, his fingers floundered and searched, before seizing the biting metal of an iron ring. His fingers curled around it, feeling wood at the back of his hand, and he swallowed, his dry tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Without hesitation, but rather blind anticipation, he pushed against the roof, feeling the wood buckle under the force. He felt more than heard the sharp crackling bubble behind the hinges, and as he shoved, the hatch began to yield to his command, still griping in defiance. The crackling grew agitated, roof still and stiff, feeling almost nailed in place. Ulfric, impatience climbing, summoned what little Nordic strength still rested in his old bones and heaved against the wood. Something splintered, the hatch swinging violently open, and the Nord almost lost his grip on the ladder, swinging his legs back onto the rungs. His ankle smashed against the wood, and a hot wave of pain washed over him. He bit his tongue.

Wind gnashed at his face again, throwing his mane behind him in a familiar unpleasantness. His anxiety unsated, he hauled himself over the ladder and onto the frost, straightening to gaze at the new sight before him, bleeding under the light of the moon.

Ulfric stood in a courtyard, whose once strong pillars encircling the open area had collapsed, their crumbled stone pieces scattered along the snow-covered expanse. Their pieces were charred and edges painted in black, long streaks of soot stretching over their surfaces. Towering walls, as high as Windhelm itself, were shattered and cracked, the stones strewn from their precipices and littered about the courtyard. A statue that once stood tall and proud in the midst of the pillars, was snapped in half, its hooded face coated in ice.

The bodies were perhaps the most noticeable.

Scattered across the expanse, their limbs were twisted in awkward positions, discarded onto the silent, deadly ice that crusted over them. Their skin was either burnt to a crisp, peppered in crimson and black, or nonexistent, the weather wearing away all flesh to leave only bone in its wake. Only small tatters of cloth wrapped around their withering limbs indicated they had possessed garments before their untimely death. They rested in the cold snow, behind the once proud pillars, on top of each other, or beneath the blocks of stone, crushed beneath the weight of rock. When Ulfric took a step closer, his feet met with only air. He glanced down to find the ground caved in, pieces of tile littering the base of the depression. A shadow of a form rested amongst the rubble, streaks of hair exposed in the moonlight.

Ulfric looked away.

He looked towards the towers instead. Many of the entrances were either blocked with rubble or completely ruined, caving in on themselves. The two main branches of the stone building were rent to the ground. Ulfric glanced to his left, at the largest tower, which seemed to remain intact. More importantly, its entrance was accessible.

The chill had settled deep into his bones, and his legs felt stiff as he stepped into the courtyard. The snow crunched beneath his tattered boots, the sound loud and echoing across the yard. Carefully stepping over the bodies, he crossed the courtyard and directed himself toward a massive metal door scaling thrice his own length. He rested his palm on the door, its chill enveloping his fingertips.

The rolling waves whispered in the night, sounds of beating wings met him, and then he pushed.


This chapter, in all honesty, could be a lot shorter. In fact, it probably should be a lot shorter. But, again, much of this is necessary detail, and, again, it will fade in time. The next chapter will have a lot more action, I assure you.

Many thanks once more to those who have commented and shared their thoughts. Please, continue to post your reviews; constructive criticism is very important to me!